Read: A force for good

Spotlight on Will Sherlock and Direct Line Group

Direct Line Group has galvanised its workforce behind a new vision to be a purpose-led business, as we report here.

In late 2019 Direct Line Group launched a new vision and strategy which has at its heart a desire to be personal, inclusive and a force for good. The year since its launch has been anything but normal but in many ways the last twelve months have highlighted the importance of this new vision. 

It has galvanised everyone at Direct Line Group and acted as a real focal point, particularly as they responded to the challenges presented by Covid. The decision-making has increasingly seen every part of the business ask how it is living up to the company’s vision. It has led to the company acting more as a purpose-led organisation. 

The vision is supported by a wider sustainability strategy based around the five pillars of customers, people, society, planet and governance. Direct Line Group aims for its ongoing actions to live up to its vision and purpose across all areas of the strategy. It also engages every layer of the company meaning everyone is pulling in the same direction.

Last year Direct Line Group launched a £3.5 million Community Fund for the first time in response to Covid. The fund  targeted much needed resources to charities and local authorities based close to the organisation’s main office sites. The ability to respond quickly was crucial with almost £2 million allocated within the first couple of weeks. The Community Fund is now  tackling big public policy challenges, with a particular focus on social mobility where Direct Line Group is working more closely with social mobility charities to support and encourage young people from disadvantaged backgrounds into careers in insurance. The community fund will continue its work this year with charities such as the Social Mobility Business Partnership, Autoraise and Teach First.

As an organisation, ‘getting in, getting on, getting ahead’ is how Direct Line Group thinks about social mobility. It’s not just about how you recruit but about how to support individuals throughout their career so that they can get a foot up the ladder. Social mobility is a complex area and it’s important to recognise the support needed throughout a person’s career. 

Working alongside the Social Mobility Pledge, Direct Line Group was looking to target social mobility ‘coldspots’ to encourage more people into the organisation before Covid. Now that the company has found remote working a success they see a big opportunity to recruit more widely and take advantage of untapped talent in areas that may have been viewed as unrealistic due to the nature of office-based working. It’s a real chance to expand its reach and the company has already started to recruit from different parts of the country in a way that hasn’t been done previously. It means they can appeal to underrepresented communities and break any stigma for people who may lack confidence and think a job in a FTSE company ‘isn’t for them’.  

The benefit of being a large organisation with a wide UK footprint is that Direct Line Group can reach lots of areas where social mobility is poor and opportunities are harder to find. Remote working now offers an easier route into communities. 

Direct Line Group wants a culture that celebrates difference and authenticity, where everyone feels free to bring their whole self to work. The organisation has a Diversity Network Alliance which is a driving force behind tackling these issues. As well as raising awareness internally, the alliance forges relationships with external charities and institutions. Top level board commitment matched by an active grassroots-led network can really have an impact. 

For Direct Line Group, as with the rest of the world, climate change has been on the agenda for a long time. The organisation has three steps to how they approach it. The first is a cultural response - with over 10,000 employees in various departments it takes a concerted effort to pull together and tackle the issue. A company wide effort is needed and a cultural response allows everyone to look at their specific business area and what they need to do. That goes to the heart of the climate debate moving forward - there’s no doubt that companies, nations and civil society around the world have all got to do their bit.

Secondly, to understand the challenge you are facing you need to look at the data. In the last year Direct Line Group has done a lot of work to analyse where its emissions currently sit. The organisation has a number of offices up and down the country and a big garage network, so it is vitally important to understand the data which allows for decision making to be better informed. 

The final step is about being really optimistic about the future and what smart choices can be made to make a tangible difference. To begin this process Direct Line Group became a carbon neutral business last year by offsetting emissions through supporting three international projects in Kenya, Brazil and Bangladesh. While the organisation has reduced its energy consumption by a third over recent years, the company recognises it needs to continue to reduce its carbon footprint and is now committed to setting science-based targets.

It will require action across all areas of the business - the way it runs its operations, its supply chain and how it allocates investments. It needs to be a company wide effort - once the cultural response is in place and the data is understood then solutions can be created that will have the biggest impact.

Direct Line Group is an organisation that lives by its vision of being personal, inclusive and a force for good, and is leading the way when it comes to being purpose-led.